A-Tuned Progressive Deathmetal (6505, Agile 7 strings, DFHS, etc)

[Ice Man]

www.myspace.com/icemanstudios

The band is called Abiotic from Miami, Florida. Awesome dudes and badass musicians. Also, my page doesn't use the myspace player, so the quality isn't AS raped.

Couple things of note:

-Bass was a finger picked warwick. So, dynamically it's a little weird, and also I really can't get into tracking warwicks. I just don't vibe on their sound. There's also a bass "solo" section which is a little strange, but it is what it is.

-Really trying to find the vocal EQ style I like the most. It was tracked on a SM7b and I'm finding more and more just how much mid range I have to cut for it to not sound boxy.

-Guitars were 6505 lead channel boosted with Maxon OD9 into a Mesa 2x12 cabinet with v30s. The real experiment on this one was using the SM7b on guitars as well instead of the usual 57.

Anywho, tear it apart. Tell me how much it sucks and hopefully somewhere along those lines it'll make me progress as an engineer.

 

[Ice Man]

Bump

 

[StefTD]

Really digging it, for technical stuff like this it's really hard to get a tight sound with finger picked
bass, but I think that you did a good job, I really like the sound in the "basssolo" suits the part
very well.
Would be cool to have that sound and playing style in all the slower parts and a more scooped
sound with pick for the faster parts where the bass plays along with the guitars.
The vocals are not bad, but I think they sound a bit generic, but that's not your fault
The guitar sound is nice, I think it could be a bit darker and less gainy, but that's just me.

 

[Jan [MTW]]

I really dig that mix and the song ! x] .. Brutal Sound.
Did you record the drums or did you use a
Vsti?

 

[Ice Man]

Really digging it, for technical stuff like this it's really hard to get a tight sound with finger picked
bass, but I think that you did a good job, I really like the sound in the "basssolo" suits the part
very well.
Would be cool to have that sound and playing style in all the slower parts and a more scooped
sound with pick for the faster parts where the bass plays along with the guitars.
The vocals are not bad, but I think they sound a bit generic, but that's not your fault
The guitar sound is nice, I think it could be a bit darker and less gainy, but that's just me.

Thanks for the kind words, man! Yeah, ideally I would have liked the bass to be tracked a little different, but everything was crammed into one day, so it is what it is!

I agree with the guitars. I'm finding that I'm slowly dialing back their brightness more and more. Also, the Sm7b definitely added a different gain character to the sound. Kinda dry and grainy.

I really dig that mix and the song ! x] .. Brutal Sound.
Did you record the drums or did you use a
Vsti?

Thanks, man! The drums were recorded, but everything was remapped in DFHS2. Metal Foundry toms and cymbals, with multiple-stacked samples for kick and snare.

 

[friendforafoe]

I'm digging all of your production man. I agree about the fingered bass dynamics are a bit hit or miss, but the mix sounds tight and well done. Sounds superb through my Beyerdynamic DT880 Pros and very chunky and full through KRK RP8s. Go you!

On listening to your other mixes, are you using SD2 on all of the songs? If so, you've managed to make them sound much akin to Slate drums ... color me impressed brutha!

 

[Charles J]

only thing i can nit-pick is a lack of the individual elements gluing together...

it all sounds very well tracked but lacks a certain magic....

I'm a fan of your studio, though! We're not too far away!

 

[Morgorroth]

Finally a deathcorish band with a singer that doesn't sound horrible. Really dig the sound.
I would buy the cd.

 

[Sam Bottner]

Awesome mix and song. And to Morgorroth, what do you consider horrible? There are plenty of good deathcore vocalists...

 

[Felix Neumann]

Great production & the performance is phantastic! I can imagine, it was a pleasure to work with em. Nice, unobtrusive Myspace page, as well. Didn´t know, it´s possible to get rid of the original player!

 

[Ice Man]

I'm digging all of your production man. I agree about the fingered bass dynamics are a bit hit or miss, but the mix sounds tight and well done. Sounds superb through my Beyerdynamic DT880 Pros and very chunky and full through KRK RP8s. Go you!

On listening to your other mixes, are you using SD2 on all of the songs? If so, you've managed to make them sound much akin to Slate drums ... color me impressed brutha!

Thanks so much for the kind words, bro! Most of the songs are SD2, yes. A couple have real drums, but a lot have slate samples blended to some degree with the SD2 snares/kicks. Another thing, too, that you can do is use Voxengo's curve EQ as a learning tool. Take a snare you're working on and analyze it against a pro snare. Don't do it to rip the engineer off, but have a visual eq reference of what you're hearing in your head to start better associating frequencies. Works on any source.

only thing i can nit-pick is a lack of the individual elements gluing together...

it all sounds very well tracked but lacks a certain magic....

I'm a fan of your studio, though! We're not too far away!

Charles, I completely agree! And thanks for commenting. I've looked up to your recordings since before I even started myself. It's just another thing I've been trying to combat. I can get elements sounding good, but have yet to properly glue them all together. Any suggestions? Perhaps I'm not being liberal enough with compression?

I've actually known Phil for quite some time and him and I always go back and forth as to whom will visit whom. Would you mind if I came over some time to catch a session? Every engineer obviously would feel differently about that question.

Finally a deathcorish band with a singer that doesn't sound horrible. Really dig the sound.
I would buy the cd.

Glad you like it, my man!

Awesome mix and song. And to Morgorroth, what do you consider horrible? There are plenty of good deathcore vocalists...

Thanks for the kind words, bro!

Great production & the performance is phantastic! I can imagine, it was a pleasure to work with em. Nice, unobtrusive Myspace page, as well. Didn´t know, it´s possible to get rid of the original player!

For sure. Super talented and chill dudes. Their drummer needs to be a damned stand up comic. I really like how the myspace came out. I basically gave my friend free reign and it came out stellar, I think. We opted out of the myspace player because Soundcloud has a better quality of stream and is easy to use. Not quite sure how we swapped them out, though!

 

[friendforafoe]

Thanks so much for the kind words, bro! Most of the songs are SD2, yes. A couple have real drums, but a lot have slate samples blended to some degree with the SD2 snares/kicks. Another thing, too, that you can do is use Voxengo's curve EQ as a learning tool. Take a snare you're working on and analyze it against a pro snare. Don't do it to rip the engineer off, but have a visual eq reference of what you're hearing in your head to start better associating frequencies. Works on any source.

Oh believe me, I can't live without Voxengo Curve EQ. I mean just the amount of EQing you can do is outrageous (60-bands FTW) and analyzing reference mixes definitely helps in the mastering process. I was just curious as to what you were doing drum wise as I just use SD2.0/MF and have never heard any of the snare hits have that over-produced Slate sample sound that you nailed. NOW it all makes sense lol. Good job man!

I normally mix everything internally with SD2.0's on-board plugins and beef the kit up with some Waves C4 as well as Voxengo Curve Eq inserts to the entire kit ... I take it you send the individual kit pieces to their own track and add third-party plugins vice the route I take?

 

[Ice Man]

Oh believe me, I can't live without Voxengo Curve EQ. I mean just the amount of EQing you can do is outrageous (60-bands FTW) and analyzing reference mixes definitely helps in the mastering process. I was just curious as to what you were doing drum wise as I just use SD2.0/MF and have never heard any of the snare hits have that over-produced Slate sample sound that you nailed. NOW it all makes sense lol. Good job man!

I normally mix everything internally with SD2.0's on-board plugins and beef the kit up with some Waves C4 as well as Voxengo Curve Eq inserts to the entire kit ... I take it you send the individual kit pieces to their own track and add third-party plugins vice the route I take?

Well, keep in mind, too, there are slate samples blended, so by no means is that entirely DFS2. What I generally do, though, is circumvent the DFS2 mixer and buss the stems out. Ie: Kick buss, Snare buss, Tom1, Tom 2 and so on, Overheads, and Ambience. I generally will maybe use 10-15% of a DFS2 kick, if I don't replace it altogether. Also, I make my own gogs out of the DFS2 snare. Even when all the humanization options are disabled, funky hits always find a way in. So if looking to have consistent crack hits, I'll print down 5-7 127 velocity hits and pick and choose which samples from that I enjoy. Same goes for medium/roll hits.

 

[friendforafoe]

That's a pretty nifty way of doing it ... I have Slate as well as SD2.0/MF. I've toyed with setting up an instance of Superior with an instance of Slate, using the overheads and toms from superior (since there's a lot more individual velocity samples) and then the kick and snare from Slate, but have yet to try using multiple samples from the two and layering them. You sir, have inspired me to do so :yesway: My band is probably going to hate me since I constantly send them new mixes of a single song and proclaim "NEW MIX!!" only to have it change the next week haha.

My LAST question (for now I suppose lol) which is really for anybody as it's a bit random, seeing as though Slate and SD2.0's samples for the kick, snare, and tom are (I'm pretty sure) tuned to "standard" drum tuning, do you or anyone else actually pitch shift samples to match a given songs tuning? Like if there is a song that utilizes a lot of drop-tuned open chord palm mutes (let's say drop C for right now), would you tune the kick to a C to give it that added "oomph" on the notes? I've never tried it and am just curious

 

[MAXMEDLOW]

dude, i love this mix. there maybe a tad too much space in the stereo field, but generally sounds brilliant. not keen on the music though, but that doesnt mean its a bad mix :L

 

[Charles J]

prepare for an Abiotic production SONIC ASSAULT STYLEE' sooooooon.

<3 you Ice Man.

STOKED to work with these guys and make them sound heavier than god.